{"id":12339,"date":"2018-03-06T01:23:43","date_gmt":"2018-03-06T06:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=12339"},"modified":"2018-03-06T01:23:43","modified_gmt":"2018-03-06T06:23:43","slug":"home-decor-superstore-coming-to-laurel-square-owner-says-market-conditions-preventing-supermarket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2018\/03\/home-decor-superstore-coming-to-laurel-square-owner-says-market-conditions-preventing-supermarket\/","title":{"rendered":"Home Decor ‘Superstore’ Coming to Laurel Square, Owner Says ‘Market Conditions’ Preventing Supermarket"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"An<\/a>

An At Home store recently built in Huntsville, AL. (Credit: At Home)<\/p><\/div>\n

A Texas-based home goods store is coming to Brick \u2013 the first step in reinvigorating the beleaguered Laurel Square shopping center on Route 70 \u2013 but residents who are hoping a supermarket will open at the site will have to wait.<\/p>\n

At Home, a Plano, Tex.-based chain of big-box stores, sells\u00a0furniture, garden, home textiles, housewares, patio, rugs, seasonal decor, tabletop decor, and wall decor, according to the company. At Home operates 116 locations in 33 states.<\/p>\n

Laurel Square, located between routes 70 and 88, has been losing tenants since the Pathmark supermarket closed in 2015. Last week, it was announced that the plaza\u2019s other anchor store, Kmart, would also be closing. The shopping center is owned by Brixmor Property Group, which announced the At Home addition last week. But on the company\u2019s social media page, Brick residents reiterated their request for a supermarket, as well as general improvements to the aging strip mall.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll see a big difference in this center once At Home opens,\u201d the company responded to a request from a resident that the parking lot and aesthetic appeal of the shopping center be improved.<\/p>\n

The overwhelming majority of comments on the post, however, were requests for a supermarket. Most asked for a premium offering \u2013 Whole Foods, Trader Joe\u2019s or Wegmans \u2013 but it appears there is little to no interest from any grocer to open in Laurel Square. Sources have told Shorebeat Acme and Foodtown had both been negotiating with Brixmor, but the deals fell through.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Laurel Square shopping center, Brick, N.J. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d like a grocer as well, but the market conditions must meet the retailer\u2019s criteria for a successful store,\u201d Brixmor responded. \u201cYou can show your support for these stores by reaching out to them through social media.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayor John Ducey, after hearing from citizens, once went so far as to launch a campaign to have resident ask en masse over social media to have Wegmans open a location in the plaza. Brixmor, it appears, is asking residents to do the same.<\/p>\n

Trader Joe\u2019s<\/a>, Whole Foods<\/a> and Wegmans<\/a> all have pages where stores can be requested.<\/p>\n

Brixmor, without going into details, promised a bright future for the shopping plaza.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings are about to get better,\u201d a post said.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Texas-based home goods store is coming to Brick \u2013 the first step in reinvigorating the beleaguered Laurel Square shopping center on Route 70 \u2013 but residents who are hoping a supermarket will open at the site will have to wait. At Home, a Plano, Tex.-based chain of big-box stores, sells\u00a0furniture, garden, home textiles, housewares, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[3249,24,2026,3127],"class_list":["post-12339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-in-brick","tag-at-home","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-laurel-square","tag-supermarket"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Huntsville.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-3d1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}